


Wishful Thinking

by entirely_the_wrong_sort



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multiverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 03:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7026889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entirely_the_wrong_sort/pseuds/entirely_the_wrong_sort
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Remus Lupin’s time at Hogwarts is coming to an end and the harsh realities of the difficult, war-torn future ahead begin to seep into the now, he finds himself wishing things were a little different. He hadn’t, however, expected the universe to pay attention to him. And not quite so literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Remus/Sirius Games 2015 over on LJ. So much fun every year. Beta'd by the lovely SB.  
> The prompt was: _“Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well or badly arranged constellations.”_ Alan W Watts

It'd been a rough week, and it was only Wednesday. 

Remus had been in a terrible mood all day that had only been worsened by his friends, who had been getting on his nerves with their chronic childishness. Not even Sirius stood a chance. He was ordinarily exempt from Remus’ disgruntlement, but the tousle of his shiny hair and his adorably bad jokes just weren’t enough to make Remus forget all his troubles today. His sultry accent just sounded harsh, and Remus was thoroughly fed up with the way his perfect smile crinkled his perfect eyes on his stupid perfect face. 

He hadn't slept properly since Saturday; his shoulder – still twinging from where it had met James' antlers at the full moon – kept him up at night. In his tiredness, he had made so many errors in his Ancient Runes coursework that he had to redo the whole thing. That morning he’d told himself that things couldn’t get worse, but the bad news just kept fluttering in from every corner of his life. All week, he’d been receiving mail that made his heart sink with every word. Every ruffle of feathers now filled him with dread at the thought that it might be for him; every hoot felt like a death omen. 

By the time he'd glanced at the Evening Prophet over dinner that night, he was at the end of his tether. He was not cheered by the blown up face of yet another missing celebrity below yet another article about how well the Ministry was handling things with the Dark rebellion. 

No, he was going to write Wednesday off, possibly the rest of the week too.

Remus scanned the obituaries for names he recognised, trying to ignore the heated debate the boys were having over whether _The Sex Pistols_ or _Walpurgis Nox_ were greater lyricists. 

They'd been going for so long, Remus was almost convinced they knew what they were talking about, but he knew not one of them actually liked punk music. May the Lord strike down the first of them to admit it though; they had a reputation to uphold, after all. 

James was now monologuing. Remus didn't think it was possible for someone to love the sound of their own voice as much as James did. He had years ago learned to tune out these sermons. It was a skill he’d mastered to great effect, listening only for keywords. Over time, his voice had become a background drone, but it wasn’t any less annoying than it was four hours ago. The subject matter surely didn’t warrant such waxing lyrical.

“What do you think, Moony?”

Keyword. Remus jumped at the sound of his own nickname but continued to ignore them and returned to sullenly pushing his dinner around. He frowned and silently replaced the roast potatoes that had miraculously disappeared from his plate.

“ _Please_ , he doesn't get a say in this – he has the crappiest taste in music. All Muggle and folky and very gay,” Sirius snorted through a mouthful of what was most likely Remus’ roast potato. It made no sense that even with food hanging out of his mouth he was beautiful; it was infuriating.

“I dunno, the perspective of a poet might be good here, boys,” Peter shrugged.

“Besides, I was the one who introduced him to that _crappy_ music, thanks very much!” James aimed a kick at Sirius but caught Remus, who then lost his forkful of peas and was filled with the sudden urge to smack James in his ever-moving mouth.

“Sorry, but I'd rather suck Voldemort's toes than have to listen to _Tambourine Man_ one more time! Give me _Ghost Whisperer_ any day.”

“Padfoot, it's a song about banging the ghost of your dead wife! How is that _artistic expression_?”

“Certainly gives Death Eater a new meaning...” quipped Peter.

The three of them fell about laughing and Remus snapped. “Merlin's tits, listen to yourselves!” he cried, slamming a fist on the table. The boys all jumped and half the students in the vicinity turned to see the commotion. “Just drop it!”

“Alright, Moony, chill out,” smirked James, his eyebrows raised.

“Time of the month?” Peter deadpanned. Six years on, it still wasn’t funny.

“How can you be so insouciant all the time? People are _dying_ ,” - he stabbed a finger at the obituary beside his dinner plate - “now's not the time for jokes about Bob bloody Dylan!”

Sirius pointed his fork at him, “Hey, there's _never_ a good time for jokes about Bob Dylan. Bob is seri – ”

Remus roared, “Christ! In case you haven't noticed, we're on the brink of a bloody war, you self-centred, arrogant – ”

“Oi! Watch it!” The boys all shouted him down, indignant and defensive.

He knew he'd regret saying exactly what he was thinking, so he bit his tongue and glowered at the three of them, who were staring back with surprise. With a growl of frustration, Remus left his untouched potatoes and stormed away with the eyes of his fellow students following him. As he left, he heard Peter calling him back and James' drawl interjecting, “Let him go, he'll be fine in the morning, as always.”

 

That night Remus sat alone, hunched over against the cold on the roof of Gryffindor tower, glaring moodily out over the trees of the Forbidden Forest. The grounds spread out below him darkened as a thick wave of cloud hid the bright gibbous moon.

There were knots twisting in his stomach that wouldn’t go away. It made him feel sick, and he had to fight the urge to wretch - not that there would be anything to bring up since he hadn’t eaten in days. He regretted his lack of foresight to wear a scarf or gloves, but he wasn’t prepared to face the boys who were laughing and joking in the room underneath him. The sound of it just irritated him further. They shouldn't be enjoying themselves when the world was the way it was. They were always so selfish; they hadn't even bothered to ask him what was wrong all day. They didn't care about anything that didn't entertain them. Children: that's what they were, not men on the edge of a war.

He was contemplating idly what life would be like without those idiots consuming it when he heard the grunts and chinking of roof tiles that announced someone's arrival. He groaned loudly and rolled his eyes up to a patch of open sky, where a lonely star twinkled sympathetically back before abandoning him behind cloud again.

“Moony?” It was Sirius' voice. The knots in his stomach tightened and he grit his teeth against the sensation until they hurt. “What're you doing up here on your own?” Sirius walked over to Remus, unfazed by the wind or the height. They were all so used to the feeling up there that they barely needed to pay attention to their footing. He sat down next to him, shoulder to shoulder, and even in his annoyed state, Remus' cheeks started to flush with the proximity. He hated himself that all he wanted was for Sirius to wrap him in his arms, even though he could barely stand to be around him today. His brain was stupid.

“Avoiding you,” said Remus acerbically.

“Well I figured that much out,” Sirius pouted. “I just mean that you never like coming out here alone. You said that if you fall and die, you want one of us around to be incriminated in your murder.” Out of the corner of his eye, Remus could see Sirius grinning at him, but he refused to acknowledge his somersaulting stomach. “So I guess that _does_ make it a pretty good hiding place...”

“Go away, Sirius.”

But he didn't move. “Listen, on behalf of the others, I'm sorry about earlier. We were just trying to lighten your mood.” When Remus didn't respond, he continued, “You know that we _do_ understand what's going on out there, right? We just... don't want to talk about it all the time. It's depressing.”

“Yes well, it's happening, so you should have some respect.”

Sirius sighed softly, his breath condensing rapidly in front of him, thin and light in the darkness. “What's wrong, Moony? You've been pouting all day. Is it anything you want to talk about?”

Remus turned to look at Sirius, who stared back at him solemnly. “You've never asked me to talk in my life.”

“Well, I've never really had to,” Sirius shrugged. “You're normally an open book. But today... is it about your mother? Talk to me.”

And just like that, he did. No matter how much he wanted to stew in his bad mood, he couldn't stop himself from talking.

“It's not just Mum, it's everything.” He let the tiredness sink into the premature lines of his face. “I got a letter from the Ministry today, about registration. It was still in the early stages and we weren't sure it was even going to go through the Wizengamot, so I didn't tell you guys because I knew you'd just freak out... but when I leave Hogwarts, I'm going to have to be legally registered as a werewolf.”

“What does that mean?” Sirius asked quietly.

“It means that my condition becomes a matter of public record,” he spat, bitter. “The Ministry can follow my every move. When anything goes down with the Dark forces, they'll have my name to add to the list of suspects... Should anyone wish to, they can look me up and see what I am. Essentially Padfoot, it means that once I leave these grounds, I'm screwed. No one's going to hire me and I'll probably end up in prison.”

Sirius said nothing. He looked as though he was about to burst from the effort of staying silent, but he had just enough tact to know that now was not the time for his indignation.

“And it gets better,” continued Remus. “My dad told me that Voldemort’s been rallying werewolf packs to his side – ”

“ – _That's_ not news, though.”

“No, but the werewolves have been busy. They've been hunting down the ones like me, the ones trying to live in normal society, even the Muggles. And they've all gone missing. Dad told me that those that don't join Voldemort's packs are being killed. There's only a few left. Besides me...”

“So, are you saying that the feral werewolves are going to try and come for you?”

Remus felt exhausted; he had to fight hard against the chaos in his stomach. “They already have. That's why Dumbledore spoke to me on Monday: said they'd intercepted a cursed letter addressed to me. There wasn't any writing, just a blood-seal. I'll give you three guesses as to what kind of blood.”

“Why didn't you tell us?” Sirius groaned, and Remus replied only with a scowl. “Well, what did it say?”

Remus shrugged. “I dunno, haven't looked yet. I don't know if I can...” His shaking fists were balled tightly in his lap, knuckles white. A gust of biting wind brought tears to his eyes and for one moment he thought he he might not be able to stem the flow. Sharing the problem wasn't helping, it just made him wish Sirius would stop gaping like he was a pitiful zoo specimen. But the words kept flowing, unbidden, needing to be heard.

“And Mum's getting worse.” He tried to swallow down the hot lump in his throat but it was insistent. For weeks he’d told his friends that she was getting better but he had been lying. The pessimistic voice in the back in his head told him she wasn’t going to: her memory was deteriorating too fast and she’d already lost her higher motor functions. And his poor father, who’d spent his life caring for his sick son, was now caring for his sick wife all alone. “I've been thinking I ought to go home for a while, in case... in case...” Suddenly, he was crying. His shoulders were shaking so violently that he hardly noticed Sirius' arms draped around him, holding him close to his chest. “B-But Dad says that I c-can't, because of NEWTs. He said that it'd only m-make Mum w-worse because she'd be worried about my schoolwork. But I... ”

After that he couldn't form words, and he let himself fall into the rhythm of Sirius' heart at his ear and his own chest-wracking sobs that made them both shake with the weight of his anguish. It was awkward sitting side by side, but he didn’t care if it made Sirius uncomfortable. He didn’t care who heard or saw him cry anymore. He was so tired of keeping it all in, of telling himself he could do it alone when he knew he couldn’t. His mask of contentment had been breaking apart for weeks and now it was gone and he couldn’t keep pretending his was fine. He’d needed this for weeks and probably couldn’t have stopped if he’d tried. For several minutes Sirius just held him, all manliness abandoned in favour of whispering comfort and stroking Remus' hair.

“After all they've d-done to get me through school and I c-can’t even g-go and look after her... Besides, m-my qualifications won't mean jack-squat! It's all f-for nothing – the minute I step out of those gates I'm done! If t-the werewolves don't get me then the war will. And what if I can't fight them? What if they turn me over to their side? These pack animals are _evil_... strong... I'll end up on the wrong side of this fight, I know it – ”

“Okay, stop right there, Remus Lupin!” snapped Sirius. He pushed Remus off his chest and held him at arm’s length with fire in his eyes. “You're talking out of your arse! You know as well as I do that that'll never happen. I mean, just think about how strong you are, Moony: you could’ve _died_ from the bite as a child. For Merlin’s sake, you could so easily have been a feral beast right back then.”

“That doesn't mean anything, Sirius.”

“Of course it does! You took control of your own destiny and didn’t let the curse define you. Everyone gets scared, Moony, that's life – ”

“I’m fucking _terrified_!”

“And I'm not saying that it's not terrifying, but I know it's nothing you can't handle. You're strong, mate.” Remus shook his head in disagreement but Sirius nodded vehemently in response, gripping his arms a little tighter. “You literally _spat_ in the face of death before; you fight everyday to be a good person. And you’re a Gryffindor to top it off! _Home of the brave_! More than that, a Gryffindor that is choosing to fight in a war _against_ the darkness you’re so afraid is a part of you!”

At that moment, the wind picked up and the carpet of cloud thinned a little. The hint of the moon, its wide corona hazy behind the cirrostratus clouds, brightened the grounds below them. Remus wiped the freezing dampness off his face on his sleeve and took a shuddering breath. He was an ugly, snotty mess but he felt cleaner for having cried. He didn’t believe a word of it, though; Sirius was just telling him what he wanted to hear, he couldn’t honestly think that Remus was brave as he’d sat weeping with anxiety in his arms. He couldn’t think there was anything good in him when so far, his greatest contribution to society was encouraging his friends to break the law for the sake of one night a month.

Sirius watched at him angrily, like he could read his thoughts. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to articulate his frustration with Remus’ self-pity. “I wish you – ” he hesitated, as though he wasn’t sure he could say what he was thinking. Breathily heavily, he turned away from Remus to stare at the silver sheet of cloud above. Even angry and windswept he was stunning, Remus thought. 

“This fear of yours, Remus, is just a phase; and it’ll pass,” Sirius said to the pale patch of cloud shrouding the moon. “It's like the moon: sometimes it's light, sometimes it's dark, and every step in between. Just because it doesn't _look_ whole it doesn't mean it's not all still there. Sometimes... you feel like the world's against you and there's no hope, but you have to remember that it won't last. It'll come back around and be bright again…”

He flashed Remus a hopeful smile that Remus tried to return. Sirius was no poet, but he was earnest, sincere. The weight of the sentiment behind the (almost insensitive) analogy made Remus’ heavy heart skip a beat. For whatever reason, Sirius believed his life had a silver lining, and that – in itself – was probably it. 

“Well…” Sirius began, “maybe that metaphor doesn't work so well for a person who's afraid of the full moon... but you get the idea,” he wrinkled his nose and waved his hand dismissively. “It's the way things are, you can't help what happens to you any more than the moon can help rotating around the Earth. But you can embrace it, embrace the change, and remember it's just a phase.”

Remus knew he must have been staring into his eyes with a frightening intensity but Sirius wasn't deterred. Instead, he smiled dolefully and pulled him back into a hug. Sirius' warm arms around him made him feel far lighter than he had in years. He let himself soak up the sensation as deeply as possible while he knew he had a free pass to do so; before it ended and they were boisterous macho teenagers again. They sat staring at the silver ripples on the lake and listening to James and Peter's muffled guffaws below, their wispy clouds of breath mingling together in front of them, warm and wet. They were each trying to earn back masculinity by pretending they weren't affected by the cold, but after a while the wind picked up again and they both shivered. 

“Well... you, me, moonlit tête-à-tête... This is all getting a little romantic, Moony, wouldn't you say?”

“No, what? Shut up, I don't...” he babbled in response. 

Sirius’ easy smile faltered and he looked away from Remus, blushing furiously even in the monochrome light. The arm slung around Remus’ shoulders noticeably tensed and Remus bit his cheek hard, wishing he could subtly kick himself without Sirius noticing.

“I only meant... maybe – ”

“Circe's snatch, it's cold out here!”

The tiles clinked behind them and James and Peter clambered onto the roof. Remus threw himself out of Sirius' embrace like they were electrified and shuffled away. He caught Sirius' eye for a split second and saw what looked like sadness before James had wrapped his arms around his head ruffled his hair.

“So this is where you got to, eh? Sneaking off for secret trysts in the moonlight?” Peter giggled.

“Do heights get you in the mood, boys?”

Suddenly remembering that he was angry with them, and now annoyed with himself, Remus huffed and stomped across the roof to retreat to the relative sanctuary of his bed without looking back, and none of them followed.


	2. Chapter 2

Remus woke up to the familiar sound of a door slamming open and James and Peter’s naturally loud chatter, followed by one set of heavy footsteps and the sound of the door closing again. He felt groggier than usual and a little nauseated, probably because his sleep problems had caught up with him, but it had been the best night’s sleep he’d had all week.

“Morning,” Peter nodded genially at him when he drew his curtains, as though yesterday never happened. Everything seemed lighter now. Better for not being alone anymore. He wasn’t even bothered that it was _his_ towel in a soggy pile by James’ feet.

“Morning,” Remus replied, climbing out of bed and glancing at his bedside table, where stood a family photograph, and even his ten year old self and his younger parents were waving at him from their frame more enthusiastically than usual. He squinted at the calendar beside it, which told him it was Thursday, and sighed. Double Transfiguration was never fun first thing in the morning.

As he changed, he looked around the room. It wasn’t the same. He rubbed his bleary eyes and looked again. There were fewer socks strewn about, only a handful of naked, vehicle-less ladies adorning the walls, and only one racing broom was propped up beside the door. Sirius’ bed was actually made for the first time since the first of September and there was a different trunk at the foot of it. Something was wrong. The others hadn’t noticed a difference though, or if they had, they were keeping it to themselves. This had to be a trick. Were they making fun of him for opening up last night? Was Sirius in on it? The thought made his insides burn, so he pushed it from his mind immediately. But it was an elaborate joke, even for them.

“Is... is Sirius around?” Remus asked tentatively.

James blinked at him, nonplussed as he pulled on his socks. “What?”

“You mean Sirius Black? What about him?” Peter frowned.

“Har har, very funny,” Remus huffed and rolled his eyes, but a nervous dread crept slowly down his spine. “Where is he?”

“Right now, probably at breakfast. Why, has he been bothering you?” said James.

The sincerity in his voice was ominous: James was an appalling liar; he had so many tells that Remus was surprised he got away with anything anymore. But this wasn’t a lie. James and Peter really weren’t hiding Sirius away somewhere.

Remus’ mind was tripping over itself with myriad questions, and his instincts kicked in quickly, telling him to go it alone, not to trust anyone. “Uh, nope. I just... have to... ask him something. About work?” He forced a smile. The others exchanged a look he couldn't decipher and shrugged, not pressing the subject.

He had a thought. Opening the top draw of his bedside table, he looked through the photographs and letters he kept there. He only had a quick sift, but it was enough to get an idea. There were many pictures of his mother, more than was normal for a teenage boy to have. There were letters in unfamiliar feminine handwriting and photos he didn’t recognise – with a woman he didn’t know in a wedding dress hugging his father, smiling next to his relatives at Christmas, holding a birthday cake with thirteen candles in front of Remus… There were scraps of notes that he and James and Peter passed in class, and pictures of them at James’ house. In six and a half years of collected Hogwarts memories, he couldn’t find one picture of Sirius Black.

“Hurry up, mate,” James said loudly from the door.

He nearly jumped out of his skin and fumbled around for something to grab. “Uh sorry, err… just getting a spare, uh, quill.”

Head spinning wildly, he followed his friends out of the room.

 

Sirius wasn't at breakfast. 

Remus spent most of the morning trying to work out what else was different in this alternate version of reality whilst trying to keep his cool and stay logical. The teachers and students all seemed normal enough, no one was missing besides Sirius, who it seemed had been replaced in his dorm by a quiet, round-faced boy who avoided him like the plague. His friends were the same except that they seemed more mature. He couldn't help but notice that the air seemed lighter, people seemed to smile more. Hell, even the weather was lovely; the sun shone hot and bright through the windows. And perhaps the biggest surprise was that Lily Evans sat herself down in Charms (at least it wasn’t Transfiguration) beside James and greeted him with a kiss. The openness of their affection, and the distinct lack of a reaction from the class made him suspect that they had been together much longer in this reality than his own.

It wasn't until third period, Arithmancy, that he came face to face with Sirius Black, Slytherin.

Remus couldn't keep his eyes off him. Sirius noticed but he just scowled and tried to ignore him. He was sat on his own, apart from the other Slytherins in the class, chatting in their own gaggle. Remus had the impression that he wasn't well liked, and he wouldn't have been surprised if James had thrown a hex or two his way over the years. His hair was shorter and neater like his brother’s, and his eyes were hard and cold even from a distance. He looked small, defeated, like he had shrunken into the shadows and had lost any trace of the defiance that emanated from his presence. Remus was itching to talk to him; it was unbearable to sit and watch from afar, but he had no idea how this version of Sirius would take it if he struck up a conversation. When the bell rang for lunchtime, he had gathered his things and sped from the classroom before Remus even had the chance to make eye contact.

 

Remus spent lunch and his following free period in the library surrounded by mountains of books from every field he could think of. He had to know what the hell had happened, and more importantly, how to fix it. But he couldn’t ask the boys for help – there was no telling what the repercussions would be if they found out Remus believed he was living in a dream world. He could be committed to the hospital wing; he might be blamed for practising illegal magic; he might be caught in the middle a huge governmental conspiracy… Frankly, Remus was willing to believe anything.

He feverishly poured over pages looking for potions and draughts that could cause hallucinations, charms that could erase and edit memories, magical creatures that could shift reality, wand malfunctions that could rewrite time. There were little more than passing mentions of useful information in the tomes he referenced and cross-referenced, and the deeper he followed the trail of footnotes and indices, the more obvious it was that this magic was too powerful for the standard curriculum. He would have to access the restricted section.

By the end of final period, he had already planned his break in. But his motivation was wiped clean from his mind when he discovered that Voldemort no longer existed. Not one word in the newspaper he'd stolen from an unguarded satchel related to dark activity – no deaths, no kidnappings or arrests, no articles promoting defensive spells for your home and family. Quite simply, the world was a better place.  
Remus had to think about this. What if he had been given the chance to save lives, to undo the damage that Voldemort's uprising had brought to the wizarding community? He _had_ wished for this, whenever he checked the obituaries or reread his DADA book until the sun came up or crossed his fingers that an owl wouldn’t bring him news of dead relatives. What if his wish had come true? He knew wish magic was just for children, it wasn’t a real thing – a (highly dubious) branch of Divination unfounded by science, but... If Remus were the only one with especial knowledge of a world that never was... 

Was this the reason things had changed, the reason Sirius was now an unhappy Slytherin? Weighed against one man's misfortune, there could be no contest. It would be incontrovertibly selfish of Remus to bring Lord Voldemort back into existence just so Sirius could be happy. No matter how much Remus loved him, no matter how sad it was that he knew how wonderful things could've been for him, Remus couldn't justify putting his desire to be with Sirius above the well-being of the world. 

It was hardly the moral quandary he'd thought it would be. He'd expected to have to fight himself harder, head against heart, to decide what to do; but Remus was surprised that there was no question of him leaving this new reality, assuming it was, in fact, real. Not when the fate of the world was on his shoulders. He had to stay.

 

On the way back to the library after dinner, Remus nearly had a heart attack when he ran straight into Sirius as he stepped through a door, bouncing hard off each other and spilling the contents of both their bags everywhere. 

“Sorry!” he winced. He could feel his face grow hot as he watched Sirius stoop to separate his things with furrowed brow. Remus noticed that he seemed to be scrambling, as though he couldn’t get away fast enough.

“Are you okay?” he asked eventually, and bent to help him. “I hit you pretty hard.”

“‘M fine.”

Sirius stole a glance at him and looked away just as quickly. The eye contact was brief but Remus could have sworn he saw panic there. Up close, Remus could sense that something was off about him, though he looked just as stunning as he ever did. He had less presence, his skin was paler and he looked tired and dour, but he pulled it off well enough that Remus still wanted to grab him and never let go. Then, his heart stopped when he saw the scars running along his collarbone beneath his robes. They were deep and fresh and parallel, exactly like the ones he gave himself every month. He bit his cheek hard and looked away, trying not to show his horror. 

There was nothing to say that it even _was_ what it looked like; he could have gotten those cuts from anywhere. He’d probably had a tangle with a snargaluff, that’s all. Remus was just projecting his own anxiety, looking for the worst in everything. He began to scramble too, gathering up their books and bric-a-brac at random. Sirius reached for the bundle of dried bugleweed by Remus’ left knee, hesitated when he saw Remus staring at him, and withdrew his hand. 

Now there could be no doubt that this was exactly what it looked like. Remus had spent the better part of the last year carrying bugleweed around – one of countless stupid remedies his parents had forced him to try. It had no other magical properties. There was no other reason Sirius would have any, unless he was a werewolf. By the time Remus had snapped out of his shock Sirius was halfway down the corridor, robes billowing around him as he pelted away, abandoning ink bottles and bugleweed at Remus’ side.

“Shit,” he groaned at Sirius’ shrinking form.

For the second time that day, Remus’ conscience agreed readily with him. Screw the fate of the world; Sirius was a werewolf. He had to leave.

 

It took three nights of research, tucked away in a corner of the restricted section until daybreak, to find the answer. He’d been in the restricted section many times before, searching for illegal spells – mostly because none of the others had the patience for research – and was thus familiar with the filing system, making it easy to find the answer quickly, right there in chapter twenty seven of _An Astrologer’s Guide to the Fifth Dimension_. 

It turned out that wish magic really _was_ the key; not in such simple terms of course, but the scientific principles applied. It was an exceptionally rare occurrence: certain planets had aligned with certain stars just right and momentarily supercharged the astrological influence of passive baseline magic, and coincided with an accidental spell he must have cast... Or something like that. James and Sirius would no doubt understand it, but him? It hurt his head too much to calculate. Astronomy and Divination were never his strongest subjects and the vast majority went straight over his head, but a quick cross reference with a map of the night sky to see the different positioning of the stars and planets confirmed that he had indeed side-stepped across temporal planes into an alternative version of reality. Since the moment he’d woken up, he had been living in a different version of his life. 

Locating a solution was eye-straining, laborious reading, but by the next night he found a promising Behenian ritual that might work in _Experiments in Cosmological Transfiguration_. It should send him back to the reality he’d always known, to directly before the moment that everything changed. The whole thing was hypothetical, but what choice did he have but to try?

 

There were ingredients and equipment he needed, much of which he already had. The owl wing bones, the noxious gurdyroot and black hellebore were easy enough to steal in class with slight of hand and good timing. Shieldtail skin, salamander blood and diamond chippings were much harder but it was hardly the first time he’d broken into teachers’ private stores, and if all went to plan, he wouldn’t even have to face the consequences of being caught; he’d be back in bed on Thursday morning, across the room from a Sirius who was emphatically _not_ a werewolf. In classes he surreptitiously charted the positions of the stars, correlated them to the right runic symbols and tried to compensate exactly for the (now significant) time difference. He spent as much of the day as he could avoiding his friends under the pretense of studying for NEWTs so that it would be easier to slip away to the Astronomy Tower that night. 

It took an age to meticulously copy out the runes in hellebore ash, crush and mix the other components and spread the concoction in a precise septagram, carve symbols into candles with a brass knife… As he worked, he could feel the air begin to shift around him, thickening like oil in his lungs. The hairs on his arms and neck stood on end with electricity and by the time he’d lit the final candle in the sequence, the taste of metal filled his mouth and nose and the static air was overpoweringly uncomfortable. 

It was nerve-wracking, considering he only had himself to rely on. There was no telling what might happen if he did something wrong. It was fine when it was all laid out in pages of technical jargon and charts, but the fact was that this was untested ground. If he made a mistake he might end up erasing existence itself! Was that worth the risk? And then he thought about the way Sirius had looked at him – angry, defeated, alone… Of course it was worth it. Of course.

Steeling himself, he sat cross-legged on the rune that symbolised the position of Polaris, the anchoring star – which he could see was at least 10 inches from where it should be in _his_ reality – and raised his wand-tip to his heart with shaking fingers. Instantly, the static crackled through him and his stomach turned over to waves of nausea similar to the sensation of a portkey, only much more intense. The stars shone so brightly it felt like the midday sun. His eyes watered painfully as he forced himself to stay fixed on the glaring Polaris star and fought to spit out the incantation between gasps of heavy air and the last thing he saw was a dizzying blur of star and candle light that evanesced as he passed out.

*

He started awake at the sound of voices. They were unfamiliar and thus, alarming. After his eyes adjusted to the soft morning light, he realised that the bed he was in was also unfamiliar. Disoriented, he sat up slowly, taking in the plush golden bedsheets, smelling the floral sweetness in the air. The bed-curtains weren't drawn and he could see black and yellow Quidditch robes draped over his neighbour's trunk. He noticed a tall, bearded boy looking over at him from on the next bed.

“Oh, you're up. Thought you'd overslept again,” the boy smiled as he tied his shoelaces. “You coming to breakfast?”

Remus just blinked. He had very much missed his mark.

“Francis?” the boy said. Remus' eyes darted quickly around the room, looking for Francis but nobody replied. Beardy was looking straight at him with vague concern. Remus continued to say nothing. “Hey, Francis, you okay, mate?” There was no mistaking that Beardy was speaking to him. He was Francis, the Hufflepuff.

“Err, yeah, I-I'm fine, err... I'll come down in a bit, you go without me.”

Beardy shrugged, shouldered his bag and left, leaving Remus alone. He didn't know what to do. The spell hadn't worked, clearly, and now he was in a _completely_ different version of reality with no idea what was going on. He fumbled for his wand on the bedside table. Ten and a quarter inches, cypress. At least _that_ was the same.

He practically shouted the incantation. The air thickened with energy again, but only for a second before the nausea that he'd felt before returned, this time almost unbearably acute. He couldn't move for fear of vomiting as the waves of sharp, prickling cramps washed over him and the air in his lungs rapidly shifted between too thick and too thin. He wasn't sure what he'd been hoping to achieve with that. Aside from not having the ingredients or equipment, he knew that he needed to let the shifted energy settle, give it time to recharge. He cursed himself that he had ignored that in his panic to fix this strange reality. Now the pain had certainly cleared his mind, he recalled the complicated pages detailing how it would be some hours before he could retry it.

It was several minutes before he dared to move. Shaking and sweaty, he replaced his wand on the bedside table. He didn't recognise the picture in the frame that stood there, yet there he was – same eyes, same nose, same hair, same scar on his arm from his first transformation – no older than ten, sat grinning between two people who were not his parents.

More to distract from the last pangs of nausea than anything, he wondered if Francis-Remus kept his memories like Remus-Remus did. Sure enough, he opened the top draw to find letters from his parents in unfamiliar handwriting. By skimming through, he gleaned that Lord Voldemort was as big a threat as ever. He looked back at the drawer; there was an album full of moving snapshots from a life he hadn't lived with parents he didn't know. He kept turning pages, not knowing what else to do. Then he stopped. There were his parents, his real parents, frozen in a muggle photograph. It wasn't a flattering image; his young mother was clearly halfway through a word, his father (not yet moustachioed) was blinking. They were both wrapped around a baby, around their son. Remus stared for a full minute, trying to control the shaking in his fingers enough to turn the picture over. The handwriting there was Francis' mother's:

_Your birth parents, Lyall and Hope Lupin. May 1960, Ipswich._

 

Remus skipped first period, opting instead to have a cold shower and try to keep himself from throwing up. He was still shaking when he slipped Francis' timetable (at least it was Thursday – he got that right) back into Francis' bag and slunk into second period Muggle Studies just before Professor Halkin appeared. He took a spare seat at the end of the back row and his stomach gave a (deeply unwelcome) jolt when he realised it was beside Sirius. Remus beamed and mouthed 'hi', but Sirius barely acknowledged him. His heart sank; they weren't friends, of course they weren't. In this world where his parents were dead and not even his name was his own, why would he even imagine that they would be friends?

He spent the whole lesson stealing glances at Sirius, and James and Peter on his other side. They were Gryffindors, and they were exactly the same. Sirius tilted his chair back just like always, James tapped his fingers on the desk in the same way the James he knew did, Peter had the same high pitched snort when he was trying not to laugh... Remus lost himself in the familiarity, he almost forgot he was Francis.

“...they had to cancel the gig, though. The drummer's in-laws went missing.”

“Muggleborns?” Peter frowned.

Sirius didn't even have to nod.

“No way,” said James gravely, shaking his head. “They're getting way more brazen about these kidnappings. I mean, talk about high profile, days before a sell-out gig.”

“I know, I hope the aurors find them before the UK tour starts. I can't even get a refund on the tickets,” said Sirius.

“Is that all you can think about?” muttered Remus automatically. The three boys turned to stare at him and Remus felt himself redden as he remembered that they didn't know him.

“What's it to you, Freeman?” Sirius spat coldly.

“S-Sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop...”

“Funny that, because it's all you've been doing since you sat down,” he replied, and turned fully in his chair to face him. “Think I didn't notice you listening?”

“I've seen him looking at you all lesson, staring like he's in love with you or something,” came James' voice.

“Well, are you?” Sirius raised his eyebrows. “Do you fancy me or what, Freeman? Is _that_ why you sat back here today?”

Remus heard Peter laugh out loud, and he could sense James' arrogant smirk as clear as day. He just grit his teeth and stared straight ahead at the blackboard swimming before his prickling eyes. They were exactly the same.

 

He had skipped the rest of his morning classes. After walking to the Hufflepuff common room and realising he didn't know the password, he went up to the third floor nook behind the tapestry of Galder the Grotesque that he and the boys had stumbled upon back in second year. The space was small, had been too small for the four of them since fourth year, but Remus hadn't forgotten about it, and now, it was the only place in the whole castle that felt anything like home.

He sat hugging his knees, trying to ignore the hollow pit in his stomach, almost too miserable to process. The shaft of light from the hallway carved a line across his feet and up the wall which had three sets of initials set in the stone, where there ought to have been four. Remus traced the perfect curves of a B with trembling fingers. The boy who had carved it was supposed to like him, to smile back at him when he whispered hello, to save him the seat on his left. Instead, his eyes had been so cold as he'd glared with distaste.

The rest of the day passed slowly in that nook. He followed the path of the slither of sunlight as it stretched across the walls until it began to fade and darken, and the halls grew silent. His stomach growled and his legs were stiff and his arse was painfully numb, but he didn't move an inch until he heard the last of the students heading to the Great Hall for dinner.

It took a lot longer than he hoped to break into the restricted section, find the book and collect the ingredients from around the castle that he needed to recast the spell. Enough time had passed that it was worth risking the powerful nausea to get back to the reality that he knew. To be honest, he'd take any reality in which his parents were alive.

An hour later, he had redrawn the runes on the floor of the astronomy tower and carved the dimensional symbols into the candles. He knew he should take more time over it, be more careful with checking the placement of the runes in line with the stars, but he couldn't help but get it done as quickly as possible.

He sat in position on the Polaris rune and lit the candles in succession with hands that had barely stopped shaking since he'd woken up. The air began to thicken already. He tasted the metal on his tongue as he faced the blinding, too-far-to-the-right Polaris in the sky, lifted his wand to his heart and spoke.


	3. Chapter 3

The morning he was woken up by Lily Evans, he was fairly certain he wasn’t home.

“Sylvia,” she said, gently shaking his shoulder, “wake up. You really need to fix that alarm clock.”

Now Remus was Sylvia. Great.

He didn’t even bother to panic. There was nothing to do but to wait until the evening, so he sighed and resigned himself to a day in the life of Sylvia Lupin. There were a few rather unmissable changes, and he found it impossible to resist having a surreptitious exploration of his new anatomy as he dressed, blushing furiously and trying to avoid looking at the other girls. He caught his reflection in the mirror and was taken aback by how well he suited his new skin; he was almost attractive, though his flyaway hair was an entity all its own. He thought to himself how James would kill to be in his position right now. It was almost funny, really.

 

He had heard far more about the intimacies of his female classmates this morning than he'd ever wanted to know, and was frankly sick to death of listening to Lily talk about James bloody Potter. She had some fairly spectacular names for him considering how much she blatantly fancied him. If this Lily was the same as _his_ Lily, he swore if he ever made it home he'd never complain about James' verbiage again.

“Hey Evans!” came the call so familiar it barely even registered to Remus anymore.

Lily rolled her eyes and tutted. “Ugh, come on, Vee,” she said, linking her arm with his and dragging him along the corridor down to lunch.

The other marauders were loitering up ahead; James and Sirius were lounging against the wall so suavely it looked like they'd practised. In fact, Remus was sure they had. He had witnessed the two of them accost Lily and her companions for years but he hadn't realised how preposterous it looked from this end. The receiving end. Because he was a girl.

“Did you enjoy my gift, my sweet Lily-petal?”

“I'm not your sweet anything, Potter,” Lily spat, and Remus was very nearly convinced by it. “And no, it wasn't even autographed, so it's as worthless as you are.”

“How the knife-edge of your words cut me so deep.” James clutched at his heart.

“That's harsh, Evans,” smirked Peter from behind James, “you know, I took that picture – it was a traumatic experience for me.”

Lily looked at Peter. “The lighting was terrible,” she sneered at him before turning back to the true object of her attentions, “didn't quite capture all your self-importance. But I’m sure the Slytherin Quidditch team will have plenty of fun with it, they said your face would make an excellent target practice for the beaters.”

“Even the most potent poisons that spill from your lips are like nectar to me, my darling...”

Remus rolled his eyes and caught Sirius' stoic gaze through jet black hair falling casually about his face. “Hey,” Sirius jerked his head nonchalantly at Remus with a wink designed to make panties drop. All that was missing was a leather jacket and cigarette hanging from his mouth.

Sirius was trying to seduce him with his trademark coolness, because he was Lily's best friend – and a girl. The whole situation was so ludicrous, Remus couldn't keep his laughter from bubbling over. Everyone stared at him, slightly frightened as he bent over with mirth, clutching his sides, red-faced and breathless.

“Vee, you okay?” Lily asked nervously, a cautious smile playing at her lips.

“You... look... r-ridiculous! You two call that flirting?! Just snog already! And _you_!” he rasped, gesturing at Sirius, “You... you actually just _winked_ at me for Merlin's sake!” It was contagious; Peter was already guffawing and Lily couldn't help but giggle with embarrassment as she affectionately rubbed Remus' back.

“This is... it's so... _stupid_!” Even James was fighting back snorts as he shrugged at Sirius, who was blushing and looking wounded. “W-what... what the hell is happening! How is this real life?!” He shook his fists wildly in the air before dissolving into hysterics again.

“What on earth was in your coffee this morning?” Lily giggled.

“I'll have some if it's going around!” chuckled Peter.

“ _I have tits_!” Remus cackled madly, “And they're brilliant!” There was a second of utterly stunned silence before all of them were howling with laughter from the sheer awkward shock.

Fifteen minutes later, the five of them sat together in the Great Hall, a wide circle of space left around them by the disconcerted student body. They kept setting each other off with the tiniest things; Remus felt physically sick from laughing so hard and long, but he couldn't stop and he didn't want to. He knew that when he did, he'd remember that this craziness was actually a serious problem he had to address. For now though, he was just revelling in the moment without worrying what state the rest of the world was in, Sirius pressed up knee to knee against him, James' arm around Lily's waist.  
By that night he was almost sorry to leave this dream world, but he had to concede that he missed his usual appendages. He had the ritual down to a tee by now and in hardly any time at all, he was crying the incantation with a giggle still traced on his lips.

*

The next day was possibly the worst of them all. He woke in his Gryffindor dorm but his three friends greeted him as little more than roommates, and when he’d sat down to breakfast Lily Evans had called him ‘honey’ and kissed him on the mouth. He turned every shade of red under the sun and stammered so hard she thought he was having a NEWT-related breakdown and tried to force chamomile tea down his throat, all while both Sirius and James shot him daggers not so subtly across the table.

He spent the rest of the day in such discomfort that he had to hide in his third floor nook again during lunch. Unfortunately, this was now their own private snogging spot and she found him within minutes. If he weren’t so shell-shocked by the experience he might’ve appreciated the intimacy, and may have even registered the jealousy on Sirius’ face at breakfast.

He had to wait for two hours after curfew before he could give Lily and her wandering hands the slip to sneak up to the Astronomy Tower, and he found himself almost wishing he’d stayed a girl. He’d never be able to look at Lily again without blushing.

*

Remus started awake to the sound of voices and was instantly filled with a sense of foreboding that he'd missed his mark again, that something was different. But the room smelled familiar, of unwashed Quidditch robes and aftershave. He spotted the old singed hole in the top of his red bed-curtain that James had made on their first night. He was home – or at least, he reminded himself pessimistically, he was still a Gryffindor.

“Get up, Moony,” Sirius called as he wrenched aside his curtain and tugged at the duvet. “Big plans to, well, plan.” He smiled, looking at Remus with a softness that had been truly lacking this past week. The contact lasted barely a second, but his eyes were so gentle it felt like they'd stared for hours. Remus hadn't realised just how much he missed Sirius' smile until it hadn't been directed at him.

“Nice of you to join the living. Now,” said James, returning to the map they had been studying while Remus had slept, “we'd have to get the train to Dunfilin from the next village over, but it's barely an hour from Hogsmeade if we pace it well.”

“Shouldn't be a problem,” Sirius said, stroking his chin. “So long as we carry Wormtail and plan safe stops to rest in. We know you can keep up with Moony and me for at least half an hour full pace...”  
Remus shuffled over with a huge grin plastered on his face, feeling better than he had in what seemed like weeks. Everything felt lighter; everything was back to rights.

“What're we planning?”

“The Great Escape, Moony!” the boys chorused.

“This weekend, remember?” James continued, circling places on the map. “I say it's about time we take the wolf on holiday.”

“Wait, what?” Remus didn't understand; there were too many things wrong with that explanation. “You can't be seriously thinking of leaving Hogwarts grounds on the full moon, can you?” Had he messed up the spell _again_?

The boys all blinked at him. “It's not a full moon 'til next Thursday, mate,” Peter said.

“It was your idea in the first place, Moony,” Sirius frowned. “You said, and I quote: 'let's make a break for it guys, Hogsmeade is getting kind of worn'.”

“Personally, I think it's brilliant,” Peter grinned. “Can you imagine the looks on their faces when they see a wolf in the middle of town?”

“B-But if it's not a full moon...” he stared at his hands. The silver scar that ran over the back of his left hand was missing. Instinctively, he clutched at his shoulder where the ugly pink scar tissue had been since he was five; the skin there was smooth under his pyjama shirt. He could feel it down in his bones: the dull ache he'd long ago learned to ignore was simply not there. “I'm not a werewolf?”

“What's _that_ supposed to mean? Why would you be a werewolf?” James laughed. “A regular wolf is good enough; where's the fun in only transforming once a month?”

There was a pause as Remus tried to process this. He wasn't a werewolf here. He was an animagus.

It was overwhelming. He couldn't control the tears that started to form in his eyes or the painful somersaulting in his stomach, but he relished every exquisite second of it. He was surprised he hadn't yet collapsed with shock or happiness – or at least he _would've_ been surprised if he could care about anything in that moment other than the fact that every dream he'd ever had since he was five had just come true.

“Whoa, Remus? Remus, you okay?” Sirius' voice came from above him, gentle hands cradling his face. “What just happened there?” According to the floorboards against his back, he _had_ collapsed after all.

Dizzy, and with a heart that felt three times its normal size beating hard against his ribcage, Remus beamed.

 

He told them it was a vivid dream he had after the boys had rushed about with cups of water and confused but concerned expressions for ten minutes. On a whim he had transformed into a wolf just to see if he indeed was an animagus. He’d heard enough about how to do so from his friends over the years and managed it with ease, his new body already accustomed to the process of the change. He pranced excitedly around the room, unable to prevent his tail from wagging like a puppy. It was exhilarating to have possession of his faculties in another form, to be able to process new odours and sounds and instincts with his human brain… it was so freeing, he never wanted to change back. The others laughed at him from above, shapes enhanced by a vortex of colours and smells, and Sirius transformed and leapt upon him, nipping at his ear. James and Peter tried briefly to quieten them before joining in the play fight in human form.

After half an hour, they transformed back. His human form was almost clumsy by comparison, but his mind felt lighter than air. Eventually, they all gathered their bags and headed out to class, James and Peter poring over the map for their big adventure, but as Remus stepped after them, he felt a hand on his arm. He turned to see Sirius staring at him with unease scrawled all over his face. 

“What?” asked Remus.

“Are you sure you're okay?” Sirius eventually asked. He pressed a hand to Remus' cheek again.

“Yeah, I... uh... I'm f-fine – ” he faltered as Sirius stepped in closer to him. This was definitely new. Before he had time to register what was happening, Sirius leaned in and kissed him gently on the forehead, thumb stroking his face. When he pulled away, Remus was bright red.

“Oh God, you've gone all flushed.” Sirius pressed his hand to Remus’ forehead now. “Are you going to faint again? You're boiling...”

Remus just stood there frozen, with his stomach performing gymnastics routines, as Sirius worried over him. He grinned stupidly at Sirius who smiled back before planting a kiss on his lips. It was quick and light, and everything Remus had ever imagined it would be between them. Not like the kisses in his trashy romance novels: passionate, greedy, back-to-the-bathroom-wall. For them, it was the kisses that people gave each other when they knew they had many more to share.

And that was how Sirius kissed him. Thus far, his life was shaping up to be outstanding. Perhaps he'd finally found home.

 

After a day of lessons he could actually follow, and a dinner that he _couldn't_ smell halfway across the castle (which made him surprisingly happy), Remus and Sirius headed up to the common room while James and Peter headed down to the Quidditch pitch. Those two had been giving them a lot of space all day, but Remus wasn't sure if that was a coincidence or if they knew about their relationship. Either way, he wasn't complaining too much. After all, alone time was one thing they'd never really had before.

“So, what's the plan for tonight then? Are we going to... hang out?” Remus asked, bouncing on the balls of his feet and slipping his hand into Sirius', who looked up and down the empty corridor nervously before relaxing into the physical contact.

“Well, I'm assuming you'll be doing your boring prefect stuff and I've got detention with Sluggy, so unless you want to fight your unfathomable sense of duty to the school and come and sit in a dark classroom with me and a fat, old perv, then I think we'll take tonight to ourselves,” he chuckled.

“I don't think I'd mind sitting in a dark classroom too much. I mean, you'd be there too, right?”

“Actually, if I can find you a wig, can you just do it for me?” Sirius jostled him.

“No deal, Padfoot,” Remus shook his head gravely, elbowing back in retaliation. “I'm afraid I'm allergic to pickled newt eyes as of just this minute.”

“Of course you are!” Sirius sighed dramatically and threw his arm around Remus' shoulder with a jovial slap. “Alas, what will it be next, Moony? Allergic to light breezes? The colour grey?”

“That'd be no good, I'd sneeze every time I looked at you,” he leaned in to kiss him but Sirius pulled away and stopped walking, glancing anxiously around them again. Remus felt an instant of panic; what if this was a big joke? What if they weren't really together? Did Sirius even _want_ to be with him? It _was_ almost too good to be true; was none of this real?

“Remus... look, it's nice that you're feeling all... affectionate, but I don't know... I'm still getting used to this, okay?” Sirius rubbed at his reddening cheeks, discomfort in his downward gaze. “Just... can we just, _not_ , in public? Not yet?”

“Y-Yeah, sorry,” Remus took a step back, silently relieved that it was still real. “I forgot.”

“It's okay, I know I shouldn't care, but... not with my brother stalking my every move these days, you know? Any ammunition...” Sirius' eyes darted along the corridor once more before he lay his arm across Remus' shoulders again.

“So, it's still early days, that's cool,” he muttered out loud as they resumed their stroll.

“I know I know, it's been _weeks_ ,” Sirius sighed, “and I'm still very much the sissy that gets sweaty palms when you touch me. I told you it might take me a while, Remus, but I _am_ trying.”

Remus frowned. “Wait, do you mean, you got all nervous? Over me?”

“Well, it was hard not to when look at me like that. If only you'd caught on a little sooner, we'd be wearing matching heart necklaces by now, so it's your own fault.”

“So... _I_ made the first move?” He raised his eyebrows in surprise, stopping still again.

“There was certainly an element of movement involved,” Sirius smirked. “I'm fairly certain you were _there_ , deary.”

“Remind me,” he blurted out before he could stop himself.

Luckily, Sirius humoured him. “Well, we were all watching the meteor shower... with me so far?” He spoke slowly, as if to a child. Remus nodded. He remembered that night two and a half weeks ago, as it had happened in his reality too: the boys and a bunch of other Gryffindors all sat up on the tower roof to watch it. They'd started the party a little early and finished their booze before the shower even started. Sirius had gone to get more.

“Then I went inside to get more drinks, and you followed... and you said something like,” – Sirius flicked his hair, batted his eyelashes and pouted ridiculously, mocking him like he was a saucy pulp magazine character – “ _'Sirius, I don't know if you feel ze same way as moi'_ – ” (he'd also adopted a bad French accent) “ – _'and I don't expect anyzing from you, but since ze world's going to war, what 'ave I got to loose anyhoo?'_. Then you went all misty-eyed and said – ”

“ – I said 'Sirius, I love you,” Remus recited, “and I don't mean the way I love James and Peter, I mean I'm in love with you, _all_ of you, from your terrible taste in music to your weird webbed toes to your little bald patch you think I haven’t noticed. I love the way you say 'bath' like there's fifteen R's in it and the way the right side of your mouth always starts smiling first. I love that you won’t swear around girls and I love that you have no idea just how much of a genius you are. I’ve been in love with you for the past two years, but I’ve loved you since the day we met'.”

“Word for word...” Sirius muttered, eyebrow raised in amusement. There was a moment in which both boys just looked at each other, understanding in their eyes. Remus knew he'd said this to Sirius because he'd said it a thousand times to himself, every night since he first realised that he meant every single word. It was his mantra, his bedtime prayer, and now someone had answered it.

“Stars were literally _raining from the sky_ , Lupin, it would've be far more romantic if you'd said it on the roof not on the dingy old staircase,” Sirius grumbled sarcastically, “but _no_ , you had to kiss me on same step that Peter squished that toad in fourth year.”

“And what did you do?”

“You know what I did, are you _never_ going to let me live it down? You'd've been offended if I _hadn't_ cried!” Sirius jostled him again in mock anger and strutted away down the corridor, tossing his hair dramatically as he went.

In the version of events he'd experienced, he hadn't followed Sirius inside to get drinks. He'd been sat trying to drink away the cramps in his body after the full moon the previous night. He remembered he'd felt especially infatuated that night – it _had_ been very romantic, watching the heavens light up with glittering streaks of cosmic energy. Later in bed, as the room spun and he tried not to vomit back up all the booze, he'd supposed that might have been the opportune moment he'd been waiting for...

Here, in this version of his life, he hadn't just undergone a violent, skin-tearing transformation and he hadn't been too drunk to follow Sirius. This was how it was supposed to have gone. And he decided in that moment, that this was how it was going to stay.

Remus caught up to Sirius as he rounded a corner and ran headlong into Regulus Black, who bounced off him and glared. “Watch it, Lupin,” he snarled.

“ _You_ watch it, Regulus,” Sirius retorted, before trying to push past him. Regulus stepped into his path.

“Hey there brother, come now. We haven't spoken in so long – ”

“Not long enough...”

“You know, I came all the way up here to find you.” He slipped his hand into his pocket and drew out a letter bearing their all too familiar family crest. “They've all been asking after you – ”

“Regulus, just stop it, stop!” Sirius growled through gritted teeth at his brother, his cheeks flushing. Remus hadn't seen Sirius so openly hostile to Regulus before; if anything, he'd always been defensive of him. No matter that they were so diametrically opposed, Remus knew Sirius loved his little brother. Here though, he had the immediate impression that they were on less neutral terms.

“You are not my ambassador, Reg. I'm not going to be persuaded by you or anybody. Why won't you understand?”

Regulus held up his hands in surrender, expression unreadable. “I didn't come to argue or persuade you of anything. I know you've made it _very_ clear that you want nothing to do with your family; I only wanted to give you your letter.” He held out the crisp envelope to Sirius, who didn't touch it.

“I don't care what they have to say – ”

“Just take it, please,” Regulus implored. “I know you won't read it, but at least take it. So they know I tried. For me.” He tried a smile; it was almost apologetic.

Sirius only stared at him coldly; none of the mournful love for his baby brother that Remus had seen in his grey eyes existed anymore. “Why would I do anything for you?”

The brutality of his tone made even Remus cringe. A pained expression briefly flashed across Regulus' face, unsolicited and unmistakable, but he swallowed and regained his hard composure just as quickly.

“Fine. I understand,” Regulus replied smoothly, his fingers creasing the letter as he shoved it back in his pocket. Sirius shouldered past him and Remus followed at his heels. They heard Regulus calling after them as they walked:

“They won't give up on you, you know. She never says it but I know mother still loves you, Sirius. They're all still willing to forgive you in a heartbeat. But you're too stubborn to apologise, both of you! Speak soon, dear brother!”

Remus could swear he could hear Sirius' heartbeats echoing off the walls...


	4. Chapter 4

Inevitably, there was a down side. Of course there was. He'd tried not to think about it all day as he basked in his unmarked skin and Sirius' smile, but he'd noticed it. His classes were half the size. The castle was quieter; students didn't run around the halls laughing, and no one ever went anywhere alone. The Slytherins seemed more uptight, the air around them charged with an uncomfortable energy that alienated the other Houses. It was also the only House where , as far as Remus could tell, every member was accounted for.

At the prefect's meeting, the list of duties had been alarmingly long, with paired patrols every night. He had the power to punish people far more severely for being out after curfew, which was two hours earlier here. Hogwarts was much stricter on the whole. He wondered how in hell his friends had thought they could escape the place for a whole weekend, not to mention the Remus they knew. What kind of rebel was he?

James hadn't mentioned Lily once all day, and he hadn't seen her in class or at the meeting. The head girl was instead Mephestia Collins, Slytherin. His own female counterpart prefect was Marlene McKinnon. He wanted to ask about Lily but upon analysing James' manner when he quietly slipped her name in conversation, he had a suspicion that she'd been here, once.

Amongst the piles of books in his trunk were Ministry issued pamphlets on Defence Against the Dark Arts, and newspaper clippings full of He Who Must Not Be Named. This wasn't unusual, as Remus had been collecting these in his own reality – what surprised him was the sheer volume. He read through them and noticed the change in their tone over time, the crescendo in Death Eater activity and the expanding obituary column as he traipsed through the years. No one had said it aloud to him, but Lord Voldemort was very close to winning.

 

He lay in bed that night, listening to the snores of his friends; friends who were still animagi out of curiosity and sheer cleverness. Friends who it turned out still loved him even without his furry little excuse-for-adventure.

His stomach was churning angrily and he had a lump in his throat he couldn't swallow down, his contentment marred by an obnoxious and nagging guilt. He felt guilty that he didn't feel worse about the Voldemort situation. After all, several of his friends and classmates – including Lily, of whom he was incredibly fond – were unaccounted for; whether they had gone missing or had never even come to Hogwarts he did not know. He should be worried for them, he should be _horrified_ that Lord Voldemort was so close to power, and he _should_ be sat atop the Astronomy Tower drawing runes in hellebore ash right then instead of laying there like nothing was wrong with this world. But he wasn't moving. He found that he didn't really care, and it frightened him a little.

Why _couldn't_ this be the way things were? So what if Voldemort was a bit stronger here? There's no reason he can't still be defeated, no more so than in his reality. And yes, Sirius – his actual _boyfriend_ Sirius – had family troubles. Fairly bad ones. But that was no different either; he'd always had family troubles. He loved him, but why was it _his_ problem that Sirius was born a Black? It wasn’t his fault. Or his responsibility, right? 

When he’d had the opportunity to erase Voldemort, it’d been almost too willing to stay. When it had been Sirius – the man he loved – he’d had to sacrifice he barely had to think about it until he’d seen those scars. So why was he hesitating now when he could easily save Lily Evans’ life? He could save hundreds. All that had changed was that now it was his own happiness he had to sacrifice. Was he really that selfish? Would he put himself before his friends? Before Lily?

He stared through his open curtain at Sirius' bed for a while, fighting the urge to wake him up and tell him everything. He got up and paced around the room, resigned to wakefulness by the loud argument in his head. The night was clear and moonlight filled the room bright as sunlight, casting sharp-edged shadows on hidden spaces in the blue and silver contrast.

Most of the photographs on the walls around the dorm were the same. A new one by his own bed showed all the boys sat in his garden drinking punch with his mother who looked mock scandalised by whatever Peter was saying; in his reality, the boys had never been to his house, his parents always too tired to host. One pinned to James' corkboard was taken at night in the empty Quidditch pitch stands: Remus was straddling a broom, holding onto James for dear life and clearly screaming, a huge full moon behind them. Remus stared at it for a few minutes, watching the moon glance in and out of sight behind silver clouds, taking in his own scrunched up face howling in fear of his friend's reckless flying rather than of imminent uncontrollable pain. He suddenly realised, staring at that photograph, that he had never seen a full moon before. Not in person, not as himself... He looked away, heat prickling behind his eyes.

The photo in the frame on his bedside table was the same one _he'd_ put there: the smiling, waving Lupin family. In their most recent letter to Remus, Mr and Mrs Lupin had written from Norway. They were having a wonderful time, his mother had penned in her familiar cursive, and his father was going loopy over the colony of pygmy nøkken they'd gone to research. In _his_ reality, Remus had been to Norway: on a Ministry-mandated trip to a werewolf research clinic in Troms when he was nine. _His_ parents hadn't been on a single holiday in his life. But here, they didn't have to spend every penny they had on expensive and useless treatments, or watch their son rip himself apart every month, or spend all their time looking after him as he slowly healed. Here, they probably looked at each other with a hint of a spark still left in their marriage instead of with exhaustion and silent regret.

Why _didn't_ his parents deserve to have a proper life? It was better here, on balance; he had found this version of reality, or it had found him... Either way, this was the life he should've lived. Just because he had been living a different life until now, it didn't make it the right one; it didn't mean he had to go back to it.

Frustrated, he threw open the nearest window and stuck his head out to feel the cool harsh wind against his flustered face. Out over the deep black of the Forbidden Forest, the stars were staring at him like the many eyes of a great soulless, blanketing beast, judging him without pity or prescription, as though this were some great question he had no clue how to answer.

What if the universe was trying to tell him that he belonged here? Back in his reality, he had the Dark forces trying to recruit him personally – powerful werewolves that warranted the fear and hatred surrounding them. The Ministry werewolf registration would surely see him discriminated against and threatened to provide him a life of solitude and strife beyond school grounds. Inside or outside of society, wizard or Muggle… there was nowhere that he belonged. Was he supposed to return to a future like that? To a place where his friends were slowly but surely drifting apart; to where his mother was sick? Was he supposed to _want_ to return to a place where he was just a quiet, lonely, hapless werewolf who was impossibly, impractically in love with his best friend?

No, he was a good person, always kind, always humble; he deserved to be happy, and the universe had finally agreed.

 

Friday morning was not as exhilarating as Thursday. He was exhausted, having only slept an hour or so that night, but even so, his mind was still racing even as he sat in Arithmancy, unable to stop himself staring at the conspicuously empty seats of people he ought to know.

“Moony?” Keyword. “What d'ya think, you excited?” James grinned.

“Uh... about what?”

“Dumbledore’s secret meeting,” he muttered under his breath.

“The Order of the Phoenix?” Remus mouthed back.

“Yeah, on Sunday. I got a tip off from Longbottom, he says that Dumbledore’s recruiting from inside Hogwarts, since that's what the Death Eaters are doing, too.”

“It's the best resource for training up fighters, so he wants us clued in before we hit the outside world,” Sirius said. “Apparently, every Phoenix gets to vouch for a candidate and Gideon Prewett wants me in. He said Dumbledore’s had his eye on _all_ of us since last year, with the thing with Snape...”

“So _that's_ why he didn't expel us.”

“God, that makes so much sense. I wondered why he just swore Snape to secrecy and didn't lock us up for being unregistered animagi,” whispered Peter thoughtfully. “He wants to use us as _spies_!” James nodded gravely, “Exactly. Frank says that things're stepping up a notch since the prime minister went missing. Did you hear about the Wilkes' place?” he asked Remus, who shook his head. “Apparently, that was one of the big Death Eater clubhouses. They held meetings there and stuff. Order blew it to bits in December; no one left, took out the whole family. Of course, you wouldn't've read about it in the _Prophet_ , would you? Not with the Order secretly running things there now.”

“It definitely sends a message. It's about time someone did something. I mean, it's not like the Ministry's getting anywhere, is it? How many innocent people were supposed to die before wackos like my cousin start getting what's coming to them?”

“God, I just can't wait to get out of here and start doing something _useful_.”

“If it's really as bad out there as they say it is, I'd rather die taking down a Death Eater or two...”

Remus really hoped James' information was off; the Wilkes' had two children still in school, one was a sixth year prefect. The Order of the Phoenix would never kill school children. But then, they'd never recruit school children, either. Dumbledore wouldn't build an army within the gates of Hogwarts, and he wouldn't enlist them as unregistered animagi. Would he? This all sounded very odd to Remus; the Order was there to protect those who couldn't protect themselves, not to take the law into their own hands. Not to make boys want to martyr themselves. 

Then again, the Order he knew of had never _had_ to take such measures, because the dark rebellion was not as far gone. If Voldemort were as powerful in his reality, would the Order be as radical too? If Dumbledore had no other choice but to fight fire with fire, he probably would... But even so, Remus wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of his friends being excited by death, Death Eaters or not. Back in his reality, joining the Order was something they had discussed gravely and with heavy hearts. None of them _wanted_ to sign up; they _needed_ to...

He tried to put it firmly out of mind, to forget about what he had known about it, because this was home now and as far as it mattered here, there _was_ no other Order and no other method. But his mind kept returning to it every time his ear caught students’ hushed whispers in the halls, and over dinner he couldn't stop himself from scanning the Slytherin table and noticing that Samson Wilkes wasn't there...

 

“This is what it should've been like,” Remus muttered, “but, you know, minus the once in a lifetime comet storm and half of Gryffindor House surrounding us...”

“The weather's the same though.” Sirius took a swig from the bottle of beetroot wine, shuddered violently in disgust and shoved it into Remus' chest. “Ugh, this stuff just gets worse with every sip.” The two of them were sat out on the roof of the tower, chill March air biting at their bare hands and faces. The sky was clear though, and the galaxy was laid out in all its magnificence. Those thousands of stars that only last night felt oppressive and cruel were now twinkling innocently at them, calm and content. The Black Lake shone silver in the bright light; the mountains beyond were silhouetted by the low gibbous moon.

They'd talked about politics over a much nicer bottle of elderberry wine, and then had come small talk when the mood had darkened beyond where Remus felt comfortable. Now, Remus had remembered yesterday's encounter with Sirius' brother and had been waiting for half an hour to try and smoothly bring it up.

“So... did you know what was in that letter?” Remus asked, much less subtly that he'd planned after a bottle and a half of wine. He winced ruefully at the eyebrow Sirius raised at him.

“Tactful, Moony,” said Sirius sarcastically, “but no I didn't – not specifics. I know it's nothing good, probably another letter from my mother trying to bribe me back into the fold.”

“But I thought you were disowned,” Remus blurted, without thinking. He regretted it immediately when he saw Sirius' expression harden.

“She took me off the family tree, but that's just a dramatic gesture. It's how I know that they ever even gave a shit about me.” Sirius swigged again from the bottle, and Remus suspected the bitter expression on his face was not due to the wine. “But my father would never disinherit me just for running away, not while there's a chance I could come back... And _now_ , they're using _Reggie_ to try and emotionally blackmail me 'cause they know how close we were. How much I miss him...”

Remus hadn't given much thought to Sirius' family. He had just assumed it was a black and white case of good versus bad, that the decision to emancipate himself was easy and obvious. But he hadn't considered that Sirius’ heart might've found it harder to leave his entire family than his head, and how it must kill him to have to pretend that the brother he grew up with meant nothing to him. Remus had never bothered to ask.

“We used to be so close before I started school,” Sirius continued softly. “Yeah, we've been growing apart ever since, but he’s still my little brother, y'know, no matter what James says...”

Remus knew James' feelings about Regulus Black all too well, and now he felt guilty that he'd taken for granted that it was Sirius' opinion too...

“But since I left home I can't even _look_ at him without seeing the family agenda plastered all over his stupid, naïve little face!”

Frustrated, he threw himself back against the hard roof, making the tiles shake beneath them. “It's _my_ fault. I should've never left him behind. I should've stayed with him, tried harder to convince him that they're wrong, but no; I just gave up on him and let them warp his mind. And now it's too late – we can't ever go back to being brothers.”

“No. Your brother loves you, Sirius, I can see it. Whatever his politics, whatever his alignments, I know that he’ll always love you. I wouldn’t blame him for wanting you back.”

“I don't either,” Sirius shrugged against the slate. “I know he does really, it's just hard to remember that when so much has changed between us. He's trying to get me to come back because he wants to protect me.”

“Just like you want to do for him?”

“Exactly,” nodded Sirius, “we're as stubborn as each other. I mean, I know he just doing what he thinks is best but that doesn't make it okay. He's convinced that it's only a matter of time before I see the error of my ways and go back to them.”

“Well, he'll be waiting a long time. I don't know anyone more stubborn than you, even if he _does_ share your genes. He'll give in first.”

Sirius didn't respond. He bit his lip and started to fidget, picking at his nails with a look on his face like he was wrestling with whether or not to say what was on his mind.

“You're worried he'll never come 'round?” Remus asked.

“I’m just scared, Moony.” He picked absently at his cuticle, avoiding Remus' eye. “I'm scared that he's right. What if I _am_ just like them; what if I’ve been running this whole time from what I am? I'm worried it _is_ only a matter of time before I give in.” He looked up at Remus pleadingly before turning away again.

“Sirius...”

“I know it’s stupid, but I just keep thinking, ‘what if I’m not strong enough to resist them?’ I mean, surely even the fact that the thought still plagues me after everything I know... isn’t that a sign that there’s something dark inside of me? Why aren’t I strong enough to find that thought ridiculous? There’s something wrong with me, Remus.”

He screwed up his face in a grimace of pain and hid behind his arms. He looked smaller and more vulnerable than Remus had ever imagined he could look; brash, unreserved Sirius was melting in the face of the war too and he had never even noticed.

Remus felt awful. He reached out to touch him, to hold him, but hesitated. Instead, he stared up into endless space and tried to think of something so say.

He remembered the last time the two of them had sat out on the roof, over a week ago – although technically, it had only been two days. Then, it had been Sirius that had succoured Remus. His sympathetic grey eyes had stared up into space and found the words to comfort his troubled friend. Now, it was his turn to do the same. It might be a little different up there, but many of the arrangements were familiar enough.

“Sirius, look,” he said and pointed at a constellation he recognised when Sirius peeked out from beneath his arm, “look at ursa minor. That constellation's sat up there for millions of years. From another planet, that arrangement would look totally different, but from our perspective, it's how it is and will always be. There's nothing wrong about it. I don’t look at it and think, ‘oh, if only that star were slightly to the left, it’d be perfect’. No,” he turned to look Sirius straight in the eyes, grave and intense, “there’s nothing inherently bad or imperfect about the way those stars are arranged, just like there’s nothing inherently evil about you. I see those stars, and I think they are exactly how they’re supposed to be, and they’re beautiful just the way there are.”

Remus reached across to press his right hand to the side of Sirius' face. He took an eye-twitching sip from the bottle with his left and passed it to Sirius who swigged deeply before blanching and smiled at Remus gratefully.

They sat in silence for a long while, watching the sky and passing the disgusting wine back and forth.

Remus stared at ursa minor. It was recognisable, but it wasn't quite the same as he knew; Kochab and Pherkad were too close together and slightly too far right. He wished he didn't notice that, wished that he could look up and just _enjoy_ the stars rather than designate them constellations and see them as out of place. But he couldn't ignore the fact that his beautiful metaphor was an outright lie. He was a hypocrite of the highest order to tell Sirius that his life was how it should be, because Remus himself knew it wasn't. He knew, deep down, that those stars were wrong, and he knew that this life wasn't right. The stars seemed off to him here because they _were_ off; they were not his stars to enjoy.

Here, he got to be who he wanted to be, but the dull, guilty stomach ache he'd had since he'd decided to stay reminded him of the hundreds more people who didn't get to be anything at all because of Voldemort. Here, he got to have Sirius, but James would never have Lily, and Lily would never know how excellent her potion-making skills would've been. Here, he was happy, but it wasn't _his_ happiness, he wasn't the real Remus Lupin. Remus Lupin's life was miserable and painful and hard, but that didn't make it inherently bad, and it didn't make it wrong. It was the hardship that _made_ him Remus Lupin.

Not-quite-ursa minor sat there far above him bright and empty, like holes pierced through the black canvas of space, glimpses through the fabric of reality. He wondered if there was a version of himself that was staring into those celestial tears from the other side, wishing things were different.

He turned to Sirius, who was staring at him with a concerned expression. It was then he realised he'd been crying.

“Are you okay, Moony?” he asked.

He thought about it for a moment, then grinned at Sirius and rubbed away the silent tears. “Yeah, I'm okay. I really am,” he replied earnestly. “Turns out I always have been.”

“What does _that_ mean?”

“I meant what I told you Sirius, and now I need to take my own advice and go back to where I belong.” He hesitated, then took a deep breath and told his friend, “It's hard to explain and probably harder for you to believe but I'm not _from_ here, from this... reality.”

Sirius blinked.

“See, where I'm from things are... different...” Remus told him of how he had side-stepped through versions of reality, how the stars were different, how he didn’t belong. It was difficult to put into words without divulging every detail of what had happened, but he tried to describe it as vaguely as he could while Sirius’ face grew steadily more bewildered. He kept asking questions that Remus couldn’t avoid answering and he had to lie several times when it came to the state of his prime reality. Eventually, he ended up sharing almost every moment of his adventures (tits and all) in order to convince him, and by the time he’d finished, Sirius was staring at him with a furrowed brow and mournful eyes.

There was a long pause. Sirius took a long, pensive gulp of wine, one hand intertwined with Remus', then shrugged.

“Okay,” he said faintly.

“Huh?” It was Remus' turn to blink.

“Okay, I believe you. How do we get you home?” At Remus' silence, he forced out a laugh and kissed him on the forehead, “Oddly enough, it makes a kind of sense. I noticed you were weird yesterday, and when when I was Padfoot, you smelled different than usual. Granted, it wasn't the _first_ explanation that came to mind, but it's preferable to my evil twin theory.” Sirius kissed him again, this time on the lips, tender and warm and right. “So how do we get you home?”

 

It was almost four in the morning by the time he had finished explaining the situation to his friends. Naturally, they hadn't believed him at first, but Sirius' testimony and trust in him managed to sway them. He avoided describing the details of his primary life, conscious that the knowledge could do untold damage here. Space was as fragile as Time after all. James – who had only just suspended his disbelief on the matter – had pragmatically explained to him why he had been missing the target every time. It was a simple matter of high energy metaphysical manipulation, and not having enough bioelectromagnetism to pull off a complete solid state transfer. Of course. Sirius had agreed, adding how easy it would be to fix this by using their collective energy to supercharge the synergy between the runic magic and celestial radiation. Obviously.

They had solved an abstract dilemma by just hypothesising, one Remus hadn't been able to solve with several days of research. They were still the wasted geniuses they would always be; and, Remus thought as he listened to them clinically discuss what would happen to _their_ Remus afterwards and whether or not they really even existed, he knew would always love them, no matter how infuriating they were. He was surrounded by these idiots 24/7, making trouble wherever they went, that it was easy to forget how thoughtful they could be sometimes, how selfless and loyal and trusting. It's always harder to recognise a good thing when you have it, especially amongst so many, much louder bad things.

 

As they stalked through the school in the early hours of the morning, it felt like nothing was any different. Like they were on their next great adventure or plotting their map. First port of call was the restricted section for Remus' book. They deciphered the jargon in minutes and discussed in hushed tones what they’d need. Then, they split up to gather supplies from various classroom cupboards and offices.

“It wasn't just a dream, was it?” James whispered to him, as they climbed up the Astronomy Tower's eternal staircase with bags full of dried herbs. At Remus' nonplussed stare, he continued, “Yesterday morning when you dreamt you were a werewolf... it wasn't a dream. You really are, aren't you?”

Remus nodded, seeing no point in denying it.

“What's it like?”

“Not exactly a barrel of laughs,” he shrugged. “I'd much rather be an animagus, that's for sure.”

He could see the questions burning in James' mind while they climbed and he sighed, as the answers burned on his lips. “It's never-ending bone-shattering agony, James, and that's just the transformation. I'm a wolf once a month but I'm a werewolf all the time. I catch colds far too easily, my muscles always ache. Sometimes I have this... uncontrollable rage, these awful dark urges. And I think that's the worst of it all. Never knowing if today's going to be the day I snap and beat someone to half to death, knowing that that power is always just beneath the surface...” He could feel James' horrified eyes boring into the back of his head, but his pity was nothing he wasn't used to.

“And you want to go back to _that_?”

“Of course not! It’s awful. And there’s some serious dark magic crap to deal with, too. But I don't really have a choice. Not one I could live with anyways...” Remus laughed humourlessly, “I mean, yeah, the bad days often outweigh the good ones, but until last week it was all I'd ever known... And it's not all pain and misery. After all, my parents love me; I'm attending Hogwarts, so I have much better prospects for the future than any other werewolf our age. And I have my friends,” he stopped and turned to face James, wiping sweat from his brow, “you guys became animagi to be with me when I change. You all do your best to keep me sane... and it's not a miracle cure but it helps. It really does.”

Remus had only encountered a speechless James Potter once before in his life, so this was a memorable moment. It was made more memorable by the strong arms suddenly wrapping him in a firm, genuine hug that the James he knew would never give him. It was awkward on the tight staircase, and his glasses dug into his temple, but he barely noticed and after a bewildered second, he returned the physical affection.

“Oi, come on, you two,” Peter's voice called from the door above them. “We've got a complex inter-dimensional transfer to do here!”

It took barely five minutes to set up with everyone spreading ash and etching symbols. When there was nothing more to do, Remus sat in position on Polaris and Sirius sat facing him, their knees touching. James and Peter lit the candles in succession, double checking that they'd accurately compensated for the time of morning and the two day difference in celestial positioning.

“Do you still love me where you're from?” Sirius muttered quietly.

“More than anything,” he whispered.

“We aren't together though, are we?” When Remus shook his head, Sirius bit his lip. “Do you remember that day two summers ago at James'? Did that happen to you too?”

Remus grinned, “We got lost in the woods and stumbled into that hippie nudist colony – ”

“ – That old man tried to make us sing with them and we all stumbled around trying to get out, but you just shrugged and started harmonising with him – ”

“ – And then he gave me those berries and I was tripping all night – ”

“ – You kept trying to rub my belly and make me go fetch twigs,” Sirius chuckled, nostalgic, “You were high as a kite, but it was the happiest I'd ever seen you... And if your Sirius is anything like me, then he's been in love with you since that day too.”

They stared at each other for what felt like hours before James and Peter snapped them back to the present by completing the circle of bodies around him, touching knee to knee.

“You ready?” James asked from behind Remus. He nodded and tore his eyes from his lover's for the last time to stare up at Polaris, burning brighter than ever in the rapidly increasing daylight. Before he could say another word, he felt three wand tips against his back and chest. The familiar crackle of energy swirled around him again, his lungs filled with oily air, and the last thing he heard before his ears popped violently was the chorus of his loved ones sending him home.

*

“Moony!”

He was woken up by the weight of James Potter bouncing heavily on his bed. It was a comfortingly familiar feeling, even though he felt worse than any other time he'd cast the spell – since this time he'd had the collective power of four people.

“Gerrup, Moonpie!” he sang too loud and too close. “It's a new day, which means a new opportunity to help me woo Lily Evans.”

“Prongs, we've been through this: you're already _going out with her_ , you don't need to keep wooing her anymore!” came Peter's exasperated response.

“That's not the point, _Peter_ , she's come to expect extravagance from me so I must continue to deliver,” James said matter-of-factly. The weight lifted and suddenly the duvet was ripped away from him, exposing him to the startlingly cold air. Around him the boys argued, paying him no mind as he adjusted to his new surroundings. Again.

It didn't feel like home; it _was_ home. The air was stiflingly fusty with old socks and adolescence, stolen sweets and discarded homework littered the floor, and a harem of two-dimensional half-naked ladies riding motorbikes beckoned from every wall. Immediately, he picked up the photo frame on the table: Lyall, Hope and a younger Remus Lupin smiled out at him, tired but content. He replaced the picture beside his calendar displaying Thursday’s timetable (double Transfiguration) and a copy of Tuesday's _Daily Prophet_ showing an article about the recently foiled Death Eater plot to kidnap the muggle prime minister.

The ache in his bones was back – more noticeable than ever due to the recent absence – and a quick touch told him the puckered scar on his shoulder was ugly as ever. He sagged at that, unable to stop himself feeling regret over the body he had left behind. It was a bittersweet sensation, knowing he was back. 

“... only have a few months of tomfoolery left before we have to be adults, gents, so let me woo my darling ruby-headed angel in these, our only days of peace, before I die valiantly in battle.”

“Ruby-headed angel? Wow, that's poor Prongs, sub par,” groaned Peter.

“We might have to add that to the list,” Sirius nodded. “What'd'ya say, Moony?”

He flashed him an electric grin, same as he always had, full of an affection he hadn't recognised until it had been a different Sirius' smile.

“Definitely, Padfoot,” Remus grinned back before James threw himself back on top of him, trying to stop him reaching the drawer that contained the compilation of James' embarrassingly bad poetry. Ignoring his aching muscles and nausea in favour of savouring the moment, they wrestled as the others laughed and placed bets.

Remus had eventually won and they managed to construct a sonnet entirely from James' quotes over a breakfast of Honeydukes chocolate and a half-eaten (possibly alive) plate of sandwiches. Remus was already exhausted by his own happiness, by how much he loved his friends – warts and all. 

“Merlin's balls, it's five to nine already! Old Minnie's gonna skin me alive if I'm late again,” cried James an hour later, before picking up his bag and throwing himself out the door with one shoe on.

“Wait, Prongs, your shoe!” Peter ran after him, waving a totally different shoe in the air as he went.

“Wait, now you've forgotten your bag, Peter!” Sirius chuckled as he watched him run, almost bent over with laughter. He made no move to pick up his comrade's abandoned bag as made his way to the door, beckoning to Remus to hurry up.

Remus caught him at the door, and blocked his path, stepping in close to him, close enough to touch. Sirius raised an eyebrow, a blush rising fast in his cheeks and laughter still traced on his lips. Without a second thought, Remus took his face in his hands and kissed him, full and deep and earnest.

The world was finally in order, but in order was by no means alright: his mother was still deteriorating, he still had the werewolves to deal with, and Lord Voldemort was still on the rise. 

Things were tough, but it would pass and he knew, as Sirius enthusiastically kissed him back, that he could handle it. He had one thing going for him at least.


End file.
